The Hawks come to town with high scoring Joe Johnson (28.3 ppg), and his backcourt mate Speedy Claxton. The Pistons should eliminate any hopes the Hawks may have of pulling an upset early, by being agressive from the opening tip and not letting up.

Great to get a total blowout, giving our starters a lot of time off. Atlanta only had one starter who could dress, Joe Johnson. Even a couple of key bench players were out. So we beat up on a very young inexperienced team. With that said, here are some details.

Mohammed finally led the team in scoring this year, and he had double digit rebounds to go with it. Pretty good for about 20 minutes. However, at one point, Atlanta had us 14-3 on the offensive boards, and that was keeping them in the game. Mohammed got about half his points by simply runnng the floor, getting post position before their centers made it down there, and made easy jumpers over smaller players. He also got some offensive rebound putbacks. I had just finished watching the Cleveland game, where Mohammed time and again pretty much walked down. An excellent change for Mohammed in this game. Still, Mohammed never got any points for us posting up their center, even with a very depleted Atlanta lineup. No, you won't see me singing Mohammed's praises until he scores like this consistently, running the floor consistenly, and does it against a good team. (And clears the defensive glass and plays help out D when players drive the lane against us-don't hold your breath.)

Flip Murray got some scoring for us. Thats welcome. However, in the 2nd quarter, with Maxiell in the game, we never managed to get the ball into the post. What a waste. Still, its always good to see any Piston hit shots.

Delfino only scored in garbage time. Yet he made a great difference in this game, with his ball handling, defense, and rebounding. And the announcers even kept praising him for doing all these little things. The steals and rebounds and feeds into the post all add up to quite a game for Delfino.

Blalock made his first NBA hoop, a shot off glass from close in. That same shot has been missed by him before, just a matter of nerves. Blalock can score once he settles down. He got to play the whole 4th in this blowout and thats great for what ails him, lack of playing time.

Dyess had a fairly forgettable game. A block or two. Rip and CB did not do much. Tay scored quite a bit as he was a complete mismatch against Atlanta, and he even hit some outside shots too.

Maxiell was a one man highlight film, lots of dunks. He just basically bulls right thru the defense, and still makes his shot. Hit some free throws too. Very impressive.

Dale Davis again only played about 6 minutes for the 2nd straight game. Again, we did not get to see the bruise brothers in action.

Sheed nailed a triple to start the game, and thats about it. In a poll, it was found that about 5% of us believe in Santa. (choosing Sheed in the post as their favorite Piston play. 60% chose Tay's blocks.)

Dupree got some garbage time play, nothing to note. Two things of note from this game. One, its the 2nd straight stand alone game we won after losing our first 7. Two, for the first time in a long time, our four stars, all of them, got plenty of rest. In a very long season, that is very welcome. GO PISTONS!!!!!

Gee, all those quiet points by Hamilton added up to 16 points, same as Tay. Its easy to miss something so darn expected. Just not noteworthy, except to mention the consistently good scoring Rip provides.

Billups was the highest with 29 minutes. (the other 3 stars got 25)

We gave up 24 offensive boards. That was mostly young athletic players for Atlanta easily beating the slow footed Mohammed to bounds. Remember the other day we got 26 offensive bounds, and that leads the league so far. Giving up 24 is a whole lot.

I have to mention, to be fair, that Mohammed was in there as we made the game a blowout toward the 2nd half of the 3rd quarter.

Blaha made the comment that Jason Maxiell would always be playing from now on. Kind of an advertisement for us to come on out, the Palace is going to be fun now.

Kudos to both Flip Murray and Mohammed for making 5 of 6 at the line each.

26 to 7 assist to turns, pretty darn good. It is great not to have to bemoan our non-existent ball handling when Billups is out of the game. Blalock is making a difference.

Looks like the bench played as much as the starters.
Dice & Maxiell played similar minutes... Brahma out score Antonio 14-2
3 blocks each for Dice & Maxiell
The Hawks had no inside presence yet killed us on the offensive glass.

Able to control his propensity to accumulate fouls at a rapid and uncontrolled rate, Nasty Naz established a rhythm and had his first double double as a Piston. Granted it was against a Hawks lineup shorter than a baby midget crawling, but Nazr was active, finished well and pulled down some tough boards. If this was a consistent game for him, he would be a free agent steal at $5.5 million a season.

Delfino è stupefacente e meraviglioso

I don't give Carlos Delfino enough love. Tonight I will. CD had a great game. He didn't score from the field until late in the game, calmly dropping a 3 pointer with the silky smoothness of Ray Allen, but his defense and intangibles (that's the stuff that I see, but doesn't make the stat sheet) were great. He played Joe Johnson, possibly the toughest cover at shooting guard in the Eastern Conference outside of Michael Redd and Dwyane Wade. Johnson went 6-16 for only 12 points. Most importantly, Delfino did not put him on the line.

Maxiell. An absolutely terrible game. He made some tough dunks, but he blew several as well. Jason decided to get a little cute this game, one handing over Shelden and Marvin Williams. Bad idea. This Hawks team is small and hurt right now, but they have a ton of athleticism and their little-bigs are super mobile and strong.

Max was good at the line, but his defense, rebounding and overall energy took a step back tonight in my opinion. It's the goal of every player on the edge of the rotation to strive for consistency. A more consistent effort could have yielded 20 points, 8 rebounds instead of 14 points, 3 rebounds.

In his defense, Maxiell did throw a nice touchdown pass to Carlos Delfino and finished with 3 blocked shots. It's just that I am no longer totally awed by the ferocity of his dunks. I need to see him crash those boards, and develop better footwork on defense. Trying to block everything is something the better big men in the league know how to take advantage of.

The Unemployment Line

After a strong start, Antonio McDyess became lost in the mix again, scoring only 2 points and grabbing 2 boards to go along with 3 fouls in nearly 17 minutes. Dice did finish with 3 blocks, but that is an Adonal Foyle stat line, not what we have come to expect from a 6th starter.

Give Flip a KitKat

He deserves a break. Saunders put the zone in. They said boooo! Zone works. They said that Flip Saunders had intense man love for Flip Murray. Murray has either played well, or gathered splinters in his hind parts. They said that Flip's offense is all jumpshots. Jason Maxiell is re-writing the playbook.

Flip's doing a great job, and it looks like he and Billups may be the only Pistons at the All-Star game (now that AI has moved to the West).

Maxiel doesn't rebound well when paired with any front court mate not named Dale Davis. Dale carves out alot of space that allows people to get boards, and he's ALWAYS in the right defensive position on the floor allwing for proper box outs. But all in all it's good to see a game like this, where you take care of bid'ness and get the bench major mins. Some may say "so what it's the Hawks", but it's good to see this team finally start doing the things they're supposed to do, and beat the teams they're supposed to beat, it shows that they're developing the right mental approach for competition.

Ahhhh my cyber-bro Merc, I was scared to make that comparison, but I have really started thinking along those lines, I don't think he'll be as good as Brand as far as All-Star and MVP talk, 20/10 etc etc......but if people wonder if Max can compete at his size as a PF, one need look no further than Elton Brand, they're almost identically built.

Jmax performance tonight was against a lot of players his age. That said the other guys get more consistent playing time and might end up developing faster. If you are coach Flip you have to look at his performance and say to yourself I have to find a way to keep this kid in games. Jmax could end up being better than J.Y.D. http://www.nba.com/playerfile/jerome_williams/ but the comparisons to Nasty http://www.nba.com/playerfile/corliss_williamson/career_stats.htmland Sir Charles http://www.nba.com/history/players/barkley_stats.html are a stretch. Until the kid gets the time that both of them got you can't even put him in the same league. I like this kid a lot because his game is sort of barkleyish just get in there and make it happen. Charles developed his outside shooting throughout his career and if Jmax does to he will be in great shape.

“Joe was telling me a pretty good statistic,” Flip Saunders said. “Take out our first eight games, when we were three and five, and we’re giving up 85 points a game over our last 17 games and we’re scoring 96. We’ve been as good as you can be defensively the last three weeks.”
The Pistons held Cleveland to 71 points in their last game and could have held Atlanta into the 70s, too, if not for allowing 25 in a fourth quarter that degenerated into typical blowout ebb and flow. “It probably started with the first game when Milwaukee scored 70 points in the paint,” Saunders said. “Our emphasis changed. We started stressing things more. Guys took more pride in it and it got to the point where we said we’re not going to let anything go uncontested inside. We have been contesting everything around the basket and taking charges, going after everything, and it’s a reflection of the guys who are playing and the guys who are giving us great energy off the bench from the standpoint of protecting the paint.”

“Joe was telling me a pretty good statistic,” Flip Saunders said. “Take out our first eight games, when we were three and five, and we’re giving up 85 points a game over our last 17 games and we’re scoring 96. We’ve been as good as you can be defensively the last three weeks.”
The Pistons held Cleveland to 71 points in their last game and could have held Atlanta into the 70s, too, if not for allowing 25 in a fourth quarter that degenerated into typical blowout ebb and flow. “It probably started with the first game when Milwaukee scored 70 points in the paint,” Saunders said. “Our emphasis changed. We started stressing things more. Guys took more pride in it and it got to the point where we said we’re not going to let anything go uncontested inside. We have been contesting everything around the basket and taking charges, going after everything, and it’s a reflection of the guys who are playing and the guys who are giving us great energy off the bench from the standpoint of protecting the paint.”

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Flip must be watching someone else play, not the Pistons. Every time someone drives the lane, Mohammed ignores it and sticks to his guy like glue so he can't end up looking bad. Never comes over to help out, even on the most obvious plays. Mohammed is the guy Flip chooses to start the games, so it is strange he claims he wants to challenge inside scoring. For that, either Dale Davis or Jason Maxiell needs to start.

Flip must be watching someone else play, not the Pistons. Every time someone drives the lane, Mohammed ignores it and sticks to his guy like glue so he can't end up looking bad. Never comes over to help out, even on the most obvious plays. Mohammed is the guy Flip chooses to start the games, so it is strange he claims he wants to challenge inside scoring. For that, either Dale Davis or Jason Maxiell needs to start.

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Dang Lee nobody said we were pitching shut outs, but we are indeed improving. Nazr's rotations have gotten alot better as of late, still not where he should be, but progress none the less. Boy Lee when you got it out for a guy you really dig in deep.

Roscoe... Max was a "bad guy" in this one? really? I mean, he missed a couple dunks, and got scored on 2 (?) times, but he still put in 14 points and 3 blocks in only 20 minutes. I'd rather he spike some shots off the rim being over-aggressive than go soft with everything. This wasn't his best game, but i'm not sure what you expect out of him in 20 minutes.

I agree that rebounding is a concern with him, but it's like Delfino's offense. The good outweighs the bad. Hopefully he can improve, but as it is, the team rebounds better by a decent margin with him on the floor (source: 82games.com), so it isn't hurting us yet. I think part of the problem is that he tries to leak out for the fastbreak score sometimes.